A prolonged clattering noise indicated that the carbines had landed on the floor.
“Halt!”
The truck hovered in the middle of the intersection about thirty yards from the first machine gunners’ nest. Its leader, an older German lieutenant and a reservist, by the look of it, had one hand threateningly raised. The police captain nudged Morava out of the truck with his shoulder so he himself could exit, and set off toward him. He saluted as he walked and barked over his shoulder at his guide.
“Translate for me! The security division of the Czech police asks permission to proceed through to assist in defending the radio building.”
The German was tremendously nervous; they could feel his isolation, a foreigner in the heart of an enemy city. Morava added pleadingly: “Let us through, sir; we want as many people as possible to survive this war. Not just ours; yours too!”
He could see the same wish in the eyes of both young gunners, and the lieutenant seemed to sense this; it probably matched what he was hoping as well.
“Weiterfahren!” he ordered them onward a bit louder than necessary, and cupped his hands to his mouth to inform the other stations.
“Let the Czech police through!”
Sucharda waved, and the truck moved forward.
“Don’t stop!” the captain warned the garage manager. He and Morava each jumped on the cabin step and held on by the window.
“Danke, Herr Leutnant. Viel Glück!” Morava wished him.
He hoped the German wouldn’t decide to examine the truck more carefully; the small arsenal might seem provocative.
They passed the remaining gunners’ nests at a leisurely pace, so as not to provoke a panicked reaction; at any point they could have been mown down. However, Morava felt more like an officer reviewing the anxious, frightened German troops, who were clearly reluctant to throw away their lives on the brink of peace. The policemen rolled uphill past them and heard the noise of battle.
“Morava!” Sucharda shouted at him across the roof of the cabin. “Let’s try the same number again. Men!” He called to the back of the truck. “Coats off, and wrap your rifles in them; don’t let the Germans see them till they have to.”
It was a bizarre sight: Fifteen men in helmets removing their long coats and fighting centrifugal force as the truck took the curve past the museum. Behind the concrete wall above the Vinohrady tunnel a couple of crouching men gave them a warning sign, but the excitable Tetera hit the gas instead. At Sucharda’s “Stop!” he braked sharply in front of the main entrance to the radio building, which was covered in rolls of barbed wire.
“Morava, let’s go! Men, get down!”
Behind him he could hear the thuds, snorts, and wheezes of the policemen, pressing the rifles wrapped in coats to their chests; he saluted for the first time in his life at two SS men, armed to the teeth, who nearly filled the entranceway with their bodies. Had he used the correct hand? A shudder ran through him.
“Grüss Gott,” he heard himself bellow at them in a tone of voice he couldn’t stand in others. “We’re the Protectorate police reinforcements here to defend the German employees!”
Miraculously the guards stepped aside for the handful of trotting men; uniforms, even foreign ones, still had an impact, and Morava’s curt announcement had made the right impression.
The garage manager disappeared in his truck around the corner.
“Follow me!” Sucharda ordered from the front and headed across a spacious hall where Germans stood frozen in surprise, facing the staircase. “Third floor, left and to the back, where the announcers’ offices are!”
He himself stopped at the foot of the stairs and slapped his men on the backside like sheep as they ran past. One of the last ones stumbled and dropped his bundle; the carabine fell out of the man’s coat and clattered down the stairs.
A major standing right opposite Sucharda was the first to realize what had happened; he ripped his pistol from its holster.
“Scheisst doch!” he roared at the others. “Shoot! It’s an invasion!”
He fired at Sucharda at point-blank range and hit him in the forehead; the captain keeled over like a felled tree.
Jitka, Morava wondered, is this all real or is it a new dream? And if it’s real, will I see you soon in our new home? He ducked, picked up the fallen rifle, and ran after his men in a hail of bullets that buzzed past him and opened dozens of small craters in the ceiling and walls.
Potatoes were coming out his ears, but he kept eating them, because he knew:
I HAVE TO BE STRONG!
For five nights he’d slept lightly so he’d hear them coming, and now he’d take a new leap into the unknown; it was too risky to stay. So he tucked into the food like a fattened goose and listened with one ear to the murmur of the radio connecting him to the outside world. Suddenly a melody practically bowled him over. It was the famous Sokol march, the anthem of the most patriotic Czech society, which had been outlawed the first day of the German invasion. Its message flew over airwaves censored till now by the occupiers, exhorting the occupied nation to move forward “with lion’s strength on falcon’s wings.”
Before he had time to wonder, the song was interrupted, and a voice cut through the ether. Now it sounded agitated, almost like a different person from the familiar announcer who had read out the correct time just a moment before, twelve-thirty — but ONLY IN CZECH, he realized belatedly!
“We call on the Czech police and all former soldiers: Come immediately to the aid of the Czech radio! The Germans are murdering our people!”
Along with it he heard a thumping he recognized as distant gunfire. The announcer repeated the call a second and a third time before he understood.
THEY’rE CALLING ME!
His hour had come, bringing him a NEW TASK, just the way he’d known it would that night in the train. Why just punish a few lusty hussies when there was an entire GUILTY NATION out there! He’d seen the Czechs’ and Moravians’ hour of glory once already, when he was fighting the Hungarians. Now once again his time had come, freeing him from his self-imposed imprisonment. With an iron will he scarfed down the rest of the potatoes.
I’M A SOLDIER AGAIN!
He pulled on the leather coat he liked the best from the wardrobe; to his surprise it fit him (did it belong to the cuckold next door?) and the pocket would hold his pistol. With an ear to the outside door he listened to the house’s murmurings to choose the right time for his exit. Suddenly he remembered.
THE GUY!
The decent thing would be to tell him he was leaving, thank him, and give him his freedom, so he could take off the straps…. The straps! The shorter two around the guy’s ankles were from his first schoolbag, a present from HER; the longer ones, binding his arms up to the shoulders, were a memento of 
imonek and Báre
ka, two angora goats he’d loved taking out to pasture. These strips of leather were scraps from the bootmaker’s workshop next door that SHE had used to make the shopping bags she sold. Now that the SOULS were gone, the straps and his beloved knife were the only witnesses to an important stage in his life, as he stood on the threshold of an even more important one.
He entered the bathroom. The half-pint rattled as he slept; the gag interfered with his breathing.
Wasn’t it awfully strange the way that runt had found him in the train? The way he’d risked his life to hide a parachutist in his home? Maybe the half-pint had something up his sleeve; maybe only his own presence of mind had foiled the guy’s plot. He didn’t have time to think it through, and so he followed his instincts again….
Afterward he carefully cleaned his knife, wound the long straps at his sides like an outlaw’s belt, and stuck the short ones into his pockets. He closed the door noiselessly, turning the key as the bolt reached the jamb so the neighbor wouldn’t hear when it clicked shut. Once again he met no one in the building. Doubtless they were all glued to their radios, listening to the battle.